FASEB Science Research Conference on `Molecular Biophysics of Membranes' Summary Support is requested for a FASEB Science Research Conference on Molecular Biophysics of Membranes. The 2018 conference will be the 15th in a highly successful 30-year series of FASEB conferences devoted to this area of research. Membrane structural biology and membrane biophysics is a rapidly advancing field. Over 50% of all drug targets, prokaryotic or eukaryotic, are membrane proteins, but they are difficult targets due to numerous challenges. Technical developments in expression, purification, and crystallization of membrane proteins have fueled an exponential increase in the number of membrane protein structures that are solved annually. Developments in cryo-electron and super-resolution microscopy have further resolved architectures of molecular machines that work in and on membranes of viruses, bacteria, and eukaryotic cells. These and many other contemporary topics will be covered in a 5-day meeting with 9 scientific sessions and 2 keynote lectures. The 2018 summer conference includes a strong focus on membrane proteins of bacterial and other pathogens. It will bring together ~ 110 junior and senior scientists in a collegial atmosphere in Olean, NY, with 37 of them giving invited talks and an additional 16 selected to give short talks based on their submitted abstracts. All those not selected for short talks will have the opportunity to advertise their posters in single-slide ?poster preview? talks. This and daily ?meet the experts? sessions will promote networking between researchers of all career stages. The meeting has a long tradition of bringing together biophysicists, biochemists, virologists, microbiologists, cell biologists, and physiologists in an intimate setting to share the latest developments in their fields. Biophysicists and other basic scientists are exposed to interesting applied biological problems, and translational biologists learn about new ideas and techniques for studying and understanding molecular processes that happen in and around membranes. The requested funds will be used to support the registration and travel expenses of a diverse set of speakers.